William Young Ottley, An Inquiry Into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, Upon Copper and in Wood, With an Account of Engravers and Their Works, from the Invention of Chalcography by Maso Finiguerra, to the Time of Marc'Antonio Raimondi, London 1816

Hind 1910, p. 87, no. A.V.2(1)

Arthur Mayger Hind, Catalogue of Early Italian Engravings Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, ed. Sidney Colvin, London 1910

Hind vol. 1, p. 110, no. A.V.2(1)

Arthur Mayger Hind, Early Italian Engraving: A Critical Catalogue with Complete Reproduction of All the Prints Described, vols. 1-4 (part 1, Florentine Engravings and Anonymous Prints of Other Schools), London 1938; vols. 5-7 (part 2, Known Masters Other Than Florentines, Monogrammists and Anonymous), London 1948

The engraving illustrates the printed edition of Dante's Divine Comedy with the commentary of Cristoforo Landino, published in Florence on 30 August 1481 by Nicolo di Lorenzo della Magna. According to Peter Dreyer, the series should rather be dated 1482-87, see 'Botticelli's Series of Engravings of 1481', Print Quarterly 1 (1984), pp. 111-15. For the series, see Lutz S. Malke, Das Fortwirken von Botticellis Miniatur-Unterzeichnungen in illustrierten Commedia-Drucken 'figuro lo Inferno e lo mise in stampa', in Dantes Göttliche Komödie: Drucke und Illustrationen aus Sechs Jahrhunderten, ed. Lutz S. Malke, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 2000, pp. 17-44; and Keller in Berlin, Rome, and London 2000-1, pp. 326-33 (also proposing a later dating). The print is similar with many details of Botticelli's drawing in the Vatican Library, Rome, see Berlin, Rome, and London 2000-1, p. 41 (repr).